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Castles
From the earliest Motte & Bailey Castles to the massive stone Fortresses still standing today
2,974 Questions
Why was Warwick castle built in leeds?
It is built on a sandstone bluff at a bend of the River Avon, which has eroded the rock the castle stands on, forming a cliff. The river and cliff form natural defenses which protect the castle. This is why the site was chosen.
What jobs did a soldier do in a medieval castle?
* Almoners: ensured the poor received alms. * Atilliator: skilled castle worker who made crossbows. * Baliff: in charge of allotting jobs to the peasants, building repair, and repair of tools used by the peasants. * Barber: someone who cut hair. Also served as dentists, surgeons and blood-letters. * Blacksmith: forged and sharpened tools and weapons, beat out dents in armor, made hinges for doors, and window grills. Also referred to as Smiths. * Bottler: in charge of the buttery or bottlery. * Butler: cared for the cellar and was in charge of large butts and little butts (bottles) of wine and beer. Under him a staff of people might consist of brewers, tapsters, cellarers, dispensers, cupbearers and dapifer. * Carder: someone who brushed cloth during its manufacture. * Carpenter: built flooring, roofing, siege engines, furniture, panelling for rooms, and scaffoling for building. * Carters: workmen who brought wood and stone to the site of a castle under construction. * Castellan: resident owner or person in charge of a castle (custodian). * Chamberlain: responsible for the great chamber and for the personal finances of the castellan. * Chaplain: provided spirtual welfare for laborers and the castle garrison. The duties might also include supervising building operations, clerk, and keeping accounts. He also tended to the chapel. * Clerk: a person who checked material costs, wages, and kept accounts. * Constable: a person who took care (the governor or warden) of a castle in the absence of the owner. This was sometimes bestowed upon a great baron as an honor and some royal castles had hereditary constables. * Cook: roasted, broiled, and baked food in the fireplaces and ovens. * Cottars: the lowest of the peasantry. Worked as swine-herds, prison guards, and did odd jobs. * Ditcher: worker who dug moats, vaults, foundations and mines. * Dyer: someone who dyed cloth in huge heated vats during its manufacture. * Ewerer: worker who brought and heated water for the nobles. * Falconer: highly skilled expert responsible for the care and training of hawks for the sport of falconry. * Fuller:worker who shrinks & thickens cloth fibers through wetting & beating the material. * Glaziers: a person who cut and shaped glass. * Gong Farmer: a latrine pit emptier. * Hayward: someone who tended the hedges. * Herald:knights assistant and an expert advisor on heraldry. * Keeper of the Wardrobe: in charge of the tailors and laundress. * Knight: a professional soldier. This was achieved only after long and arduous training which began in infancy. * Laird:minor baron or small landlord. * Marshal: officer in charge of a household's horses, carts, wagons, and containers. His staff included farriers, grooms, carters, smiths and clerks. He also oversaw the transporting of goods. * Master Mason:responsible for the designing and overseeing the building of a structure. * Messengers: servants of the lord who carried receipts, letters, and commodities. * Miner: skilled professional who dug tunnels for the purpose of undermining a castle. * Minstrels: part of of the castle staff who provided entertainment in the form of singing and playing musical instruments. * Porter: took care of the doors (janitor), particularly the main entrance. Responsible for the guardrooms. The person also insured that no one entered or left the castle withour permission. Also known as the door-ward. * Reeve: supervised the work on lord's property. He checked that everyone began and stopped work on time, and insured nothing was stolen. Senior officer of a borough. * Sapper: an unskilled person who dug a mine or approach tunnel. * Scullions: responsible for washing and cleaning in the kitchen. * Shearmen: a person who trimmed the cloth during its manufacture. * Shoemaker: a craftsman who made shoes. Known also as Cordwainers. * Spinster: a name given to a woman who earned her living spinning yarn. Later this was expanded and any unmarried woman was called a spinster. * Steward: took care of the estate and domestic administration. Supervised the household and events in the great hall. Also referred to as a Seneschal. * Squire:attained at the age of 14 while training as a knight. He would be assigned to a knight to carry and care for the weapons and horse. * Watchmen: an official at the castle responsible for security. Assited by lookouts (the garrison). * Weaver:someone who cleaned and compacted cloth, in association with the Walker and Fuller. * Woodworkers: tradesmen called Board-hewers who worked in the forest, producing joists
What did people sleep on in the medieval castles?
Cots for the richer and benches for the poorer. The richest slept on beds.
What was the first castle William the Conqueror made?
each castle looked different , but the first castle was a very important one i'm very sorry but all i know is that it would be made out of stone, have lots of curtains and expensive cloth fro the beds - and very very unhygenic thank you! It's "The Tower of London"
Why were castles built during the middle ages?
Medieval lords and kings began to build castles just at the time the Carolingian Empire was beginning to collapse, under the pressure of raids by Vikings, Magyars, and Spanish Muslims. The national government was no longer able to stop these raids, or even respond to them, so it became important for the local lords to be able to do so. A castle was the best defense for the purpose.
A medieval castle had some of the same elements as the older Roman castra. It differed in the basic layout. The Roman castra had a square plan, surrounded by walls with gates, built on level land. The castle had a large open area called a bailey, at the foot of a mound called a motte, with both surrounded by walls. ON the motte was a keep, which was strongly fortified and contained storage for provisions. The bailey kept out small groups of raiders, but the keep was the place of refuge in an all-out attack. This newer design was both more versatile and more secure.
Where did King Henry VIII live?
Henry had many palaces which he lived in; these included Greenwich (where he was born), Richmond and many others.
Henry VIII's primary residence later became Hampton Court Palace, but Henry lived in a number of palaces including the Tower of London, Windsor Castle, Eltham Palace, St James Palace, Westminster Palace, and occasionally Dover castle.
Windsor Castle & Hampton Court Whitehall, Richmond, Hampton Court only after he acquired it from Wolsey. His favourite home was Greenwich, then spelled Grenewich. He loved it there and kept the royal barge moored there so he could use the Thames to travel back and forth.
More information can be found in a forthcoming book, I Diced With God ... the life of Henry VIII which will answer all these questions and many more. Look out for it this summer.
What do you call a water-filled ditch around a castle called?
A dry or water filled ditch around a castle is called a moat. The water in the moat is supplied by a nearby river.
The word moat should not be confused with the French term motte which described a mound or hillock upon which a fortification was constructed.
Please see related links.
Who won the battle of Maiden Castle?
After his subjugation of the southeast of England, the Roman supreme commander Aulus Plautius sent Vespasian and his Legio II Augusta to conquer the southwest and subjugate the hostile Durotriges and Dumnonii. He captured twenty oppidia, fortified towns or hill forts, including Maiden Castle. There is no record of a battle being fought there. It is likely that Vespasian besieged and seized Maiden Castle.
How were the medieval courtyards decorated?
Clearly the decoration depended on the use. Some of those such as would be found in palaces or the villas of wealthy people were often paved with expensive decorative stones. The architectural decoration could on ornately carved columns of walkways going around them. They could have trees growing in them or gardens of decorative plants. For special purposes they could be decorated with brightly colored banners and lanterns or torches to brighten them at night.
At the other extreme, courtyards could be, well, plain, and probably too dirty and smelly to talk about in an answer on decoration.
What was the name of the bathroom in a medieval castle?
There were different ways both of bathing and of disposing of human waste used in castles of the Middle Ages.
Medieval people bathed much more often than people of the Renaissance, and in many places, a settlement was more likely to have a public bath house than it was to have a permanent marketplace. Some of the bath houses were inherited from the Romans, but in general medieval people used wooden tubs. These could be set up almost anywhere, and did not require special rooms for bathing.
One way of dealing with human waste was to use latrine ditches. Another was to use night pots, which were emptied outside regularly. Some castles had "toilets" which had long shoots emptying in a chamber for receiving it at a lower level, and from which it could be removed regularly. Others had similar shoots going to moats or rivers.
Bodiam Castle, which was built in 1385 and is in East Essex, had 28 "toilets" all emptying into a very large moat. Since various aquatic life forms consume excrement, and the moat was very large, it is possible there was no bad smell bad from this, but the water was clearly unsanitary. There is a link to an article on Bodiam castle below.
In those days, people were clean, but they had no idea how diseases were spread. Most people thought diseases were carried by bad air and smell.
Castles were built in lots of different countries. Initially they were built in England by the Normans.
Castles would usually be built on high ground as a vantage point, they were usually built near towns to protect them.
For additional information, see the Related Questionfurther down this page.
Was William the Conqueror the first person to build stone castles?
It was built in the 12th century by William the conquerer. They were built to replace motte and bailey castles, as they were easy to destroy, because they were built out of wood. However, the stone keep were made out of stone, and so they were hard to defeat!!
There were many different ways of attacking castles, not all of which would work on any give castle.
One was to lay siege to the castle. If the castle had insufficient food or water, this would work. If a siege wore on, it could be as devastating to the people outside the castle as to those in it.
Another way to attack a castle was to run men up to the walls with ladders, and have them climb over the top. It took courage.
A battering ram could be used at the castle gate. This took courage also. People in castles sometimes threw oil down on the battering rams and set them on fire. When that happened, the men working them could be burned alive.
Catapults could also be used to break down the gate or the walls.
Siege towers were towers on wheels. If the castle was on level ground and had no moat, the siege towers could be run up to the walls and give attackers both protection while they were climbing, and a way in. Siege towers could also be toppled or lit on fire.
Sometimes attackers would lay siege to a castle and use catapults to throw rotting bodies of animals or parts of people who had died of diseases over the walls into the castle. That way they could make the people inside sick. They could also make their own people sick, so it was not done as commonly as it is written about.
If a siege was lasting too long, and if it was possible to do so, the attacking army sometimes dug a mine under the castles walls and then caused the walls to collapse. One way to do this was to build a room under the walls, then fill it with something that would burn slowly, such as the bodies of fat pigs, light the fire, and let the fire weaken the walls to the point that they fell down.
Who first used the siege tower?
One of the oldest references to the mobile siege tower in ancient China was ironically a written dialogue primarily discussing naval warfare.
What features do castles have?
Castles usually have a mote, towers, and long halls. They also have special defenses inside and outside of the structure.
Why were castles stopped building in Britain?
Why did they stop building castles?
Castles were great defenses against the enemy. However, when gunpowder was invented the castles stopped being an effective form of defence. By the end of the 1300s gunpowder was widely in use. The medieval castle with its high vertical walls was no longer the invincible fortification it had been.
Why was gunpowder so effective?
The use of gunpowder made both castles and city walls much more vulnerable because a cannon could knock down the stone walls. The only way to knock down walls before the invention of gunpowder was to dig under the walls to make them unstable. This was a highly dangerous way to do it especially as you might get boiling hot tar poured over you from above!
And in some cases the enemy could throw fire balls which could lead to fire and total destruction. They were also very expensive and were not practical as you couldn't go anywhere if you were surrounded by enemy troops.
Certain types of fortresses, such as those developed by French King Louis XIV's General and Engineer Vauban, were much more practical against gunpowder weapons, and they came to replace the castle.
What is the size of the largest siege tower?
The largest siege tower ever erected was the Helepolis was an ancient siege engine invented by Polyidus of Thessaly and improved by Demetrius I of Macedon and Epimachus of Athens for the unsuccessful siege of Rhodes, based on an earlier, less massive design used against Salamis (305--304 BC).
The Helepolis was essentially a large tapered tower, with each side about 130 feet (41.1 m) high, and 65 feet (20.6 m) wide that was manually pushed into battle. It rested on eight wheels, each 15 feet (4.6 m) high and also had casters, to allow lateral movement as well as direct. The three exposed sides were rendered fireproof with iron plates, and stories divided the interior, connected by two broad flights of stairs, one for ascent and one for descent. The machine weighed 160 tons, and required 3,400 men working in relays to move it, 200 turning a large capstan driving the wheels via a belt, and the rest pushing from behind. The casters permitted lateral movement, so the entire apparatus could be steered towards the desired attack point, while always keeping the siege engines inside aimed at the walls, and the protective body of the machine directly between the city walls and the men pushing behind it.
The Helepolis bore a fearsome complement of heavy armaments, with two 180-pound (82 kg) catapults, and one 60-pounder (27 kg) (classified by the weight of the projectiles they threw) on the first floor, three 60-pounders (27 kg) on the second, and two 30-pounders (14 kg) on each of the next five floors. Apertures, shielded by mechanically adjustable shutters, lined with skins stuffed with wool and seaweed to render them fireproof, pierced the forward wall of the tower for firing the missile weapons. On each of the top two floors, soldiers could use two light dart throwers to easily clear the walls of defenders.
What were the disadvantages to round keep castles?
The disadvantages of round keep castles:
1) First of all, they stuck out like a sore thumb! Here you have a fortress made with all those nice looking square walls and gates and then there in the middle is a silly round tower. They looked really dumb and so no one respected them. They also insulted everyone's architectural sensibilities and the resulting anger made them the first place to be attacked. "Tear down the goofy tower" was the battle cry so often heard.
2) They were not easy to defend! When under attack, the lord of the keep would yell. "Everybody to the north wall!" Of course since the whole tower was round (and thus only encircling one wall) the defenders were completely confused about where to go.
3) Last of all was the biggest disadvantage of a round keep. The kings in those days were generally obese blockheads and thus couldn't get into their own tower. The old saying, "you can't fit a square pig into a round hole" comes from this situation.
